Word: beggared
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...aged couples (read: my parents) queued up to see director and gadfly Michael Moore’s most controversial film to date. Oh and then there were a few others: the groups carrying signs and enlisting moviegoers to help protest the Republican National Convention in August; the well-spoken beggar who dispassionately argued his case to theater patrons (“My, you look nice tonight. I don’t drink or do drugs, but I do need some money”); and lastly two blonde men in pastel polo walking by. With a sneer, one said...
Walking With the Beggar Boys...
...abandoning the region’s mid-90s psychedelic boom, here the Elves seem to be doing their best R.E.M. The album has a warm, folksy sound, immersed in twanging banjo and shuffling guitar. The consequence of this, from a band used to more complex arrangements, is that Beggar Boys ultimately suffers from boredom, especially around the middle of the album where simplistic roots-rock anthems like “Evil Eye” are so unengaging that it’s hard to believe that this is a band with not one but two full concept albums behind them...
...Beggar Boys does have its pop moments. The leadoff track, “Never Believe,” is a riveting opener that belies the monotony that follows. Driving synth opens the album, and quickly gives way to peppy jangling guitar. Only slightly dampened by Andy Rieger’s nasal, expressionless voice, the song is a pleasant chunk of modern folky pop. But after ten more songs of the same, one questions how much of this sound one can take...
...Ultimately, Dyer is so enamored of his own decline that he cannot be bothered to get on with his rebirth. Perhaps that's as it should be. In an early chapter, he meets a vacationing Swede who has had a dead baby shoved in his face by an Indian beggar. "We were all horrified and, I think, more than a little envious," he writes. "All visitors to the developing world, if they are honest, will confess that they are actually quite keen on seeing a bit of squalor." And readers, if they are honest, will confess that they are more...